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First, I would like to thank ADMIN for all the work he has put into this forum.

Regarding keeping or deleting old content, I think it would be a mistake to delete anything. I first found this forum in 2008 while searching the web for information about some ancient LASERWORKS galvos. I have read most of the forum posts to "learn" about the hobby and in the process got a feel for who's responses/comments/opinions have the respect of the forum members...good insight when asking for help and filtering through responses, etc. There are so many ways the old info can benefit someone else. One many occasions I have searched for something, found an old related post and was able to contact the OP and get info I could never have found otherwise.

As for the $ contributions, I was contributing monthly for a few years but had to stop for bank account reasons - my Paypal is tied to an account that I only use for PP and don't regularly deposit funds into, which caused problems. As many others have already mentioned, if a method is added to make one time donations (ie not recurring) I could contribute larger amounts as/when needed without worrying about the monthly balance in my Paypal account.

Sorry for the delay. I had a big nasty project show up at work that involved making a widget that takes GPS coordinates and tries to spam them over 20+km(or better). Turns out that range is a magic number based on LOS/curvature of the earth. Upside: I've found out how to melt down chinese made GPS modules and get 5 decimal places reliably after a couple minute lock time. Also got a cold, so if I'm not pressing buttons I'm trying to nap it out.

(..And - IMHO - You (Admin) Should factor into the 'amount needed to run', since a) Your time IS worth something over and above 'hard Op'ing costs', and b) No One here believes (and -them if they do..) that you're running off with the good-hearted PL-donations to the nearest HussieMart(tm) and/or off in Tahiti sipping mojitos out of Mermaid's navels.. But, your Time / Efforts - over and above "costs" - Should-be compensated-for.. How much is "fair", well that's something people can debate about, but I, for one, think it should be something reasonably-generous, since, yep - You are Well within your Rights to simply say 'phukitall', and walk away / sell-out, Yet.. you Choose to keep this place the inch-wide / mile-deep info-focused Denizen of Photonia, that we all Love, and That choice / effort You make, is Worth Something, in / of itself. IMO....

..So.. Supportometer: Javascript-buddy drawing off a DB of some-sort? And, does not need to be 'numbers-specific', just representational.. Something-something animated GIFside something? These are just (tech-ignorant) thought-seeds..

Originally Posted by Admin

As far as the link control thing in signature blocks, as best I can tell, links are independently controlled from their respective location, so it would have the unintended consequence of disabling linking in post content also. This seems like a bad idea.

Yeah, but Those that insist on Having a 'commercial / sales link' in thier Sigs, well.. a) I am sure they could still 'figure out a way' to be posting links, where (truly) necessary, and b) Might help cut down on some of the 'spamerrorism' we see happen in someone's 'call for tech help' thread, for example.. (Don'tcha just h that??)

Anyhoo, Hope yer feelin better, there, and Thanks for all U do for us / this place..
j

But secondly ... i don't really have much to do with the forum today apart for pay for it ...

thirdly ... there are a few people here that can or may be willing to take my place funding this forum
I have been paying $10 per month for many MANY~ many years .... Robert you may be able to tell them how many without me digging back ?
how long is not important to you guys .. (well it is for me because I felt that it was a good cause ) but now ... with very few people here ... ( including me ) i can no longer justify it .... and i have spent the last few weeks looking at it and hoping that something would be done ... but the overall response on this thread has been minimal .. apart from the people that care ( thank you..... you know who you are )

Fourthly ... you all might think me as bit of an "arse" speaking my mind .. but i am no Mr Trump ..

Filthy (yes pun intended ) after all these years of funding the forum like everyone else that has done the same .. no one has ever thanked me or the others for doing so

so sadly i am its time to leave...

I will pop back and visit occasionally ....

and one hundredth an fifty two ( did i miss a few ) I will not stop funding this place until some one here is willing to take over my subscription of $10 a month

isn't there like a cloud something something that could just run everything virtual on and no hardware to futz with? Probably all too spendy eh? Anyone run the numbers for AWS, Azure, SoftLayer, etc?

there isn't anything like cloud running on virtual and no hardware... cloud is just a new buzzword for old name "internet server" where you don't have to take care about the infrastructure, because someone else (like amazon) does... hence the costs
down to the basics everything runs on some hardware, be it in amazon datacenters, google datacenters or other big cloud players, it's just clouded away from you for more comfort

there isn't anything like cloud running on virtual and no hardware... cloud is just a new buzzword for old name "internet server" where you don't have to take care about the infrastructure, because someone else (like amazon) does... hence the costs
down to the basics everything runs on some hardware, be it in amazon datacenters, google datacenters or other big cloud players, it's just clouded away from you for more comfort

Thanks, I understand the concept. The idea behind cloud services is that an economy of scale is achieved by merging many workloads onto the same piece of hardware thus reducing (hopefully) the cost while also achieving portability with regard to hardware failure (just move the VM). We're beginning to get into the days of containerization, which may provide even more flexibility with regard to workload sharing and portability. I was just asking if anyone had run the numbers for any of the cloud-based services vs hosting the hardware yourself. I can see how my original description of "cloud something something" might have led you to believe I don't have a handle on such things.

there isn't anything like cloud running on virtual and no hardware... cloud is just a new buzzword for old name "internet server" where you don't have to take care about the infrastructure, because someone else (like amazon) does... hence the costs
down to the basics everything runs on some hardware, be it in amazon datacenters, google datacenters or other big cloud players, it's just clouded away from you for more comfort

Hi guys ... its been a month since my last post
Sadly no one has come forward to replace my donation to this site, so it is with regret that i am pulling my funding
I don't visit here anymore except to read this thread, also no further info has been provided on reducing overheads of this site.
I think that if there had been more progress regarding changes to make the forum efficient then i would have continued funding

We talked the talk but little walking was done ...

A forum of this size, should be able to run on a couple of hundred $ per year, i personally have contributed $470 to the running since 2012
And so have many others .... but now its sadly time to go ... Great forum, Great People, Great Friends, ... thank you all